163 posts from January 2010

Sunday, January 31, 2010

Get a cell phone and use it exclusively for your affair. Once
the affair took off, (former presidential candidate and U.S. Sen John) Edwards bought a cell phone to take calls
exclusively from (his mistress, Rielle) Hunter, which he dubbed the "Batphone." Edwards
failed, however, to keep the phone hidden from his wife. Elizabeth
discovered it ringing one night in his bag, answered it, and heard
Hunter launch into a "romantic monologue." That's when Edwards
confessed to Elizabeth that he'd had a "one-night stand." (An
understatement.) From then on, Edwards and Young arranged handoffs so
Edwards wouldn't have the Batphone while Elizabeth was around... From How He Got Caught --The elaborate tricks John Edwards used to keep his affair secret—and why they failed by Slate's Christopher Beam

Elizabeth was no fool, according to this account (a summary of what's found in Andrew Young's new book The Politician), routinely checking his cell phone call logs, and so on. And John went to elaborate lengths to conceal his affair from her sleuthing. But he was, in the end, a fool. And worse.

Saturday, January 30, 2010

Comptroller Dan Hynes is getting clobbered in the final weekend before the election on the Burr Oak Cemetery story -- the Quinn campaign has, down the final stretch, unearthed, so to speak, more documents and stories suggesting that Hynes' office if not Hynes himself failed to exercise due diligence when things started looking hinky at the Alsip-area graveyard. (See the WLS-Channel 7 report Comptroller's office knew about Burr Oak remains in 2003)

Two questions:

1. Hynes has given plenty of "not my table!" responses to reporters and in debates -- and indeed it is a somewhat persuasive point that it makes no sense for a check-writing, accounts-monitoring office like the Comptroller to be cemetery cops -- but where are the campaign commercials fighting back on Burr Oak?

2. Where is the Hynes campaign commercial quoting Quinn vouching for the integrity of Rod Blagojevich during the 2006 campaign season? You want a failure of due diligence, how about the reassurances the Lieutenant Governor gave voters that, despite all the scandals swirling around Blagojevich, he was a man of integrity? (See Where's Old Pat Quinn? and Quinn responds to my Tuesday column)

I asked the Hynes campaign about this early this morning. (Their response is now in the second update, below).

1) I’m assuming Hynes’ early release ad combined with the Harold Washington ad are a much more effective one-two punch on Quinn than the governor’s cemetery ad response. If they thought that the cemetery ad was truly effective, they’d probably do something. Also, and more importantly, a campaign can only do so many messages at a time. More messages requires much more money and results in more dilution of a campaign’s core story. Also, Hynes’ standard stump response - it’s not my job - is just not really all that wonderful. How do you put that in an ad?

2) Quinn is certainly on record saying nice things about Blagojevich, but Blagojevich is also on record time and time again saying how he loathes Pat Quinn. I heard Hynes has killer video of Blagojevich heaping praise on Quinn, but the campaign decided not to use it. The “beauty” of the Harold Washington ad is that there is legitimately divided opinion over what Washington really thought of Pat Quinn. There is no dispute that Blagojevich despises Quinn and has for some time. So, the push-back on a Blagojevich ad is far easier and far more believable. Perhaps because of this, the Blagojevich-Quinn hit has never tested well against Quinn, going all the way back to last fall. And, finally, it’s more message dilution.

My replies to Rich's answers:

1. When it doubt, try umbrage. You pivot to the "how dare the governor attempt to score political points by exploiting the suffering of the survivors of those buried at Burr Oak?" question, quote selectively from Quinn's own commission report about the confusing thicket of responsibility, and ask in a voice tinged with sorrow and outrage, why all these charges are being lobbed at the Comptrollers office now instead of when Quinn's own commission released its report last fall.

2. Strategically, I'd see ads showing Quinn purring over Blago as a way to parry the "accountability" argument Quinn is advancing with Burr Oak. As far as I know there's no proof that underlings ever told Hynes, "Hey, looks like a corpse problem brewing at Burr Oak" and that Hynes then blew it off, though it does look as though some of his underlings dropped the ball. But if "he should have known!" is the standard (the standard applied also to Quinn for the early-release program) then the argument could be "Quinn, who lectures us about accountability, did a triple monkey (see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil) for Blagojevich in 2006 in order to advance his -- Quinn's -- own political career." If we don't see that in the next few days, I'd look for it in the fall if Quinn wins.

I guess this is my way of saying the Burr Oak punches do seem like they're landing.

UPDATE PART TWO --

From Hynes campaign spokesman Matt McGrath:

Our response is this: we’re sticking to our game plan and focusing on our GOTV efforts. We take issue with significant portions of ABC-7’s report last night and the inferences made, and we have voiced our concerns to the station. Allow me to reiterate, once again, that the Comptroller's office has a limited role with regards to cemeteries that is strictly financial in nature, and has no role whatsoever in regulating burial grounds or procedures. No greater authority than the Governor’s own task force said the same, concluding that the Burr Oak tragedy was a result of regulatory disjunction. Now in the waning days of a hard fought campaign, and at a time the Governor’s grip on power is slipping, he and his allies have chosen to disregard facts and appeal to sensational distortions. We are confident the people of Illinois will see through it.

As for campaign ads, we are very confident about where we are three days before the election, and we’re not going to let a desperate, last-minute smear attack dictate what we do and what we’re communicating to the people of Illinois.

A report on WLS-Ch. 7 Friday night detailed what it described as a 2003 internal corporate memo in which the chief executive then in charge of Burr Oak allegedly noted that its previous owners had buried over or cleared out old graves for new ones and expressed concern that older human remains had been dumped. There's no evidence that letter made it to Hynes' office.

A 2004 letter from Hynes' comptroller office to the same Burr Oak executive noted that the cemetery owner wanted to construct a mausoleum on the grounds, but in the process of excavation had found human remains. The Hynes letter instructs the cemetery owners to contact the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency or the cemetery association.

Quinn tried to tie the two documents together to level the last-minute charge that the issue of grave re-selling and dumping of human remains at Burr Oak was known to Hynes' office as a result of the comptroller's memo. Hynes said the documents are unrelated and that it would not be unusual for excavation in a century-old cemetery to unearth human remains in an area not previously charted.

Friday, January 29, 2010

You can make people laugh by caricaturing a text or conversation through self-referential descriptions of discourse functions and relations, abstracted away from specific content.....Mark Liberman in Language Log

Here is a short form of the open letter I sent to the gubernatorial candidates along with their responses in the order that I received them:

Do you consider the power the legislative leaders hold in Springfield to be a problem? If so, how would you address it, in general. And, specifically, how do you plan to get your agenda past Speaker Michael Madigan and Senate President John Cullerton?

Also, the Tribune investigations raised many concerns about Speaker Madigan’s work as a property tax attorney.

I will not mince words when it comes to Andy McKenna. As GOP Party Chairman, he was an unmitigated disaster. As a candidate, he is coward. As a Republican, he is a cancer....GOP gubernatorial candidate Dan Proft

Soldiers for Stroger, the unauthorized pro-Todd Stroger group responsible for fliers outlining an alleged Irish political conspiracy, are back with a new set of leaflets, calling Alderman Toni Preckwinkle “Aunt Jemima on the Meter Box.”

The fliers, which are being placed on windshields from Lincoln Park to Hyde Park, are the latest in a series of attacks on opponents of County Board President Todd Stroger. The fliers are designed to look like parking tickets.

This one rips on Preckwinkle for supporting the sale of the city’s parking meters – which she voted against...

Mark Carter, who along with Wallace “Gator” Bradley created the first batch of Soldiers for Stroger fliers earlier this month, says the fliers are not sanctioned by Stroger...

The inaccuracies of the flier – stating the Preckwinkle supported the unpopular parking meter sale – are irrelevant, Carter says.

“If she didn’t do that, she did something else bad against the people,” he says.

The campaign of former GOP state party chair Andy McKenna is sending around this video with the statement: "Even President Obama understands why Kirk Dillard is on the hot seat for supporting him for President in 2008. That’s not a very popular position in a Republican primary"

GOP primary voters may be longing for more bitter, rigid partisanship. Independent and moderate voters? Not so much, I expect.

A mass email sent yesterday by Toure Muhammad, spokesman for Cook County Circuit Court Clerk Dorothy Brown's primary campaign in the race for the Democratic nomination for Cook County Board president had the subject heading "Dorothy Brown still winning despite media attacks" and featured this:

"Online polls" aren't particularly reliable, which might explain why one would be at odds with the scientific polls showing Brown fading fast and giving Ald. Toni Preckwinkle the edge. But even still, I couldn't remember this particular survey, so I asked Muhammad for the source of these results. He pointed me to a poll I'd posted,
here,
in which we see this:

Note that this isn't a preference survey (which candidate will you vote for?), but a prediction survey (which candidate do you think will win?)-- one I posted along with 19 other guess-the-future questions at the turn of the year when Brown was leading in the early scientific polling.

I'd already written up the results (on Jan 4, when 48% of 450 voters had picked Brown as the winner) and forgotten about this "poll," though it obviously has continued to evolve and draw votes as well as certain opportunists.

Here's State Sen. Rickey Hendon's radio ad in the Democratic Lt. Gov. primary race, with a hat tip to Rich Miller who notes that it's destined to be a classic. And a hat-tip to Progress Illinois, which calls it AMAZING.

According to legend, it originated during Ronald Reagan’s 1966 campaign for governor of California. And, as you may have noticed, it is flagrantly violated during every hard-fought Republican primary, such as the current, six-candidate race for the Illinois Republican gubernatorial nomination.

In fact, many of the candidates in that field seem to believe in a 12th Commandment — “Thou shalt not speak well of any Democrat” — that trumps the 11th.

Wasn't a fan, at first. Thought it too tightly compressed the campaign season (which, really, for all practical purposes, didn't start until after New Year's Day when people started paying attention) and didn't give enough time for citizens to get to know particularly unknown candidates.

Now I'm all for it. Have come to believe that a month is plenty of time for anyone who cares even a little bit about politics to get familiar with the candidates, weigh their positions and their ads and cast a sensible vote. And that, if anything, shorter campaigns help level the playing field by giving less of an advantage to those with enough cash to bombard the airwaves with messages for months.

In other words, I was for being against it before I was against being against it.

True, the weather is likely to not be as good Tuesday as it would have been for the customary mid-March primary vote and bad weather on election day tends to give an advantage to the candidates with the best organization (usually incumbents).

But tell me: Would you be robo-called and assaulted with finger-wagging political commercials for the next month and half, or vote and be done with it next week?

CLICK SURVEY RESULTS

The short campaign season is coming to an end on Tuesday

Thank goodness! Four weeks was plenty -- 79%%Too soon! I wish it went on longer -- 21%

Embattled incumbent Cook County Board President Todd Stroger will discuss our newspaper's frequent criticisms of him with Tribune Deputy Editorial Page Editor John McCormick live at 10 a.m. Friday on WGN AM 720. Look for the rhetorical fur to fly.

UPDATE -- in the 9 a.m. hour I'll be on WBEZ FM 91.5 yakking about the month in review with other panelists. Check back here midday for links to mp3s of both landmark events in the history of audio.

While the frontrunners are busy playing catch-up to Andy McKenna, this is the other big story in the (Republican gubernatorial primary) race at the moment: The fight between Andrzejewski and Proft for the heart of conservatives. Going by poll numbers alone, it's a fight Andrzejewski is winning....

The latest Rasmussen poll puts their combined support at 19%, which would place them second to McKenna, but well within the margin of error. It's speculation of course -- there's no way to know for sure unless it happens -- but were one to back out and endorse the other, then a conservative candidate with Tea Party backing would have a legitimate shot at the nomination, assuming he gets all the other's supporters.

Dvorak used to work for Proft but I think he's spot on. And I'll add what he might want to say but doesn't, which is that Proft is clearly smarter on the issues, better spoken and faster on his feet than Andrzejewski, who is barely even Proft-lite.

By the way, Proft got off the line of the week in this post: "I am the guy who will take the bicycle chain to the playground in Springfield."

About "Change of Subject."

"Change of Subject" by Chicago Tribune op-ed columnist Eric Zorn contains observations, reports, tips, referrals and tirades, though not necessarily in that order. Links will tend to expire, so seize the day. For an archive of Zorn's latest Tribune columns click here. An explanation of the title of this blog is here. If you have other questions, suggestions or comments, send e-mail to ericzorn at gmail.com.
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Contributing editor Jessica Reynolds is a 2012 graduate of Loyola University Chicago and is the coordinator of the Tribune's editorial board. She can be reached at jreynolds at tribune.com.